Traditionally, placing wagers on gaming devices involved the submission of tangible currency, such as bills and/or coins, requiring players to have access to such currency, either through carrying currency, or by obtaining the currency from casino cashiers. This reliance on submitting tangible cash to a gaming device was not only an inconvenience to players, but also slowed gaming activity in general, resulting in a reduction in revenue to the proprietors of gaming establishments.
Cashless wagering emerged as a model for casinos to extend gaming currency to players without requiring the game-time exchange of tangible currency. Casino credit was introduced as a method for players to place wagers without the need for the real-time exchange of tangible cash. Casino credit can take many forms. For example, one form of casino credit is called “check cashing” in which the casino extends credit to a player in exchange for a bank draft or check that is held by the casino for a period of time, however briefly, before the casino deposits the check. Another form of casino credit takes place when the casino grants an unsecured loan, sometimes called a marker, to a player. The player then typically utilizes the credit by receiving gaming credits up to an authorized amount.
One problem faced by casinos offering casino credit is related to collections. When a player receives advances against a credit line and ultimately loses some or all of the advanced funds, the casino must determine whether and how the credit will be repaid. In the case of an unsecured marker, the casino bears the risk and associated costs of arranging repayment by the player and ensuring the player actually repays the credit. In the case of check cashing, the check may be dishonored by the payor bank, leaving the casino with the cost and burden of pursuing and negotiating with the player.
A further disadvantage of this approach is that the casino is unable to collect cash, redeemable points, or other cashable currencies. As a result, the casino is prevented from enabling increased wager amounts generally and, therefore, increase offsets to outstanding balances associated with a player's wagering account.
This problem is further exacerbated in the case of unscrupulous players that elect to cash out some or all of their credit balance. For example, a player that received $5,000 credit line, utilized the credit line by obtaining $5,000 in gaming credits, played for a short period of time, and then cashed out the balance was able to extract the monetary value of the casino credit from the casino. Such a player could then leave the casino with approximately $5,000 in currency, even if that player had no intention of repaying the amount.
With the introduction of networked systems and advances in gaming technology, cashless fund transfer protocols such as IGT's Advanced Funds Transfer (AFT) emerged for transferring funds between a gaming machine and a casino accounting system. Such protocols could be implemented in cashable funds transfer systems, allowing the casino to offer an in-house player debit card account. A system could implement support for promotional funds transfer as well, resulting in the distribution of restricted and non-restricted promotional credits to gaming machines. One deficiency with these protocols is that they provide facilities for funds transfers during a game at a machine but not managing and processing different types of credits that may be provided to the game player during a game session.
Some systems attempted to accommodate these accounting and disbursement issues by segregating credits into two existing credit types, namely cashable credits and restricted credits. Cashable credits are credits that may be redeemed for cash at their full face value and have no special accounting requirements. This includes, for example, funds from coins, bills, regular cashable tickets, and regular player winnings. By contrast, restricted credits are credits that are either not redeemable for cash, only redeemable at a discount to the face value, or alternatively are redeemable for a non-cash disbursement, such as for goods or services. Restricted credits are traditionally not redeemable for cash, and must be utilized or forfeited. Restricted credits are removed from a gaming machine in a manner that preserves the restricted status of the credits, such as by electronically transferring restricted amounts to a controller or printing restricted tickets. They are generally not cashed out on a traditional cash out ticket, as cashable coins or tokens, or by attendant handpay.
The applicant believes he has discovered a problem related to the dichotomous model of restricted and cashable credits. These existing credit types, taken alone, do not provide for the functionality necessary to accommodate applying credit to pay down credit lines. Such a new credit type would share attributes from both the cashable and restricted/non-restricted promotional categories. Such a new credit would be cashable at its full face value, but only under certain conditions and/or at certain times. For example, the new credit type would likely support conversion from a non cashable credit to a cashable credit upon paying off the balance of a credit line. In addition, this new credit type would be available to pay down a credit line. For purposes of this application, applicant refers to this new credit type as managed credit. In the case of a cashable credit, such credit is available to be cashed at its full value at any time without condition. In the case of a restricted credit, it is generally not redeemable for the full face value of the credit, and is not available to apply to the pay down of a credit line. If managed credit are treated as restricted/non-restricted promotional credit, payout behaviors will not align with the players expectations, which can frustrate their wager activity. Further, if managed credit is treated as cashable credit, the casino may continue to be exposed to costly withdrawals due to lack of control over cashable credits and a resulting inability to pay down a wager account balance.
Another approach seen in some systems involved combining cashable and restricted/non-restricted promotional credits in a single game credits account. If any combination of restricted promotional credits, nonrestricted promotional credits, and/or regular cashable credits were in a gaming machine's credit meter at the same time, the credits would be wagered in a fixed order, where either all the cashable credits or all the promotional credits were played first. One problem with this fixed-order model is that the introduction of a managed credit type into the order can involve special processing and management. For example, if managed credits are wagered last, disbursement logic for the credit balance at the time of a cash out event may differ from that where cashable credits are wagered last based on the cashable determination rule that applies to the managed credit. In addition, submission of cash and/or advances of wager account funds may include special processing depending on the type of credits currently being played within the fixed order. For example, if cashable credits have already been played and a cash submission is made during the wagering of the managed credits, the system will need to determine if the cash submission is applied as managed credits or added as cashable credits, and whether wagering should shift back to the pool of cashable credits. In the ordered model as it presently exists, these types of complexities are not accommodated.
Other proposed solutions included solely providing support that allowed a player to select a credit type from the available game credits on a per-wager basis. In this approach, each wagering event is processed independently according to the rules for that type of credit. Here again, the solution was dichotomous, accounting only for cashable credits and restricted/non-restricted promotional credits. One problem with this approach was, again, the lack of accounting for special nature of managed credit, or the recognition that the type of session (e.g. cash or wager account) may impact how cash submissions are credited and metered. In addition, relying solely on this type of ad-hoc selection prompt to address different types of credit can become annoying to a player, and can slow down play generally, resulting in decreased wagering generally and reducing profit opportunities for the casino.
Another aspect of cashless gaming relates to whether systems accommodate cash submissions when managed credits are in play and/or a wager account session is active. One solution was to exclude the combination of cash contributions when accepting a cash submission would result in mixed credit types in the game credit account. Exclusion as the sole option for accommodating cash submission can result in limiting the amount of money that a player has in play for a given session to that amount designated as available in the wager account. As a result, the amount of money a player will wager during a given session can be reduced, along with a reduction in the time the player will participate in a gaming session. Further, this can create inconvenient and confusing state changes as a player is forced into different types of sessions, reducing the overall casino profit opportunities due to a reduction in overall amounts wagered.
Alternatively, existing systems could simply allow cash to be submitted without any sort of special processing, but in so doing, the system may still need to account for whether the submission increments a cash in meter, a wager account in meter, and/or some other meter. Lacking such a mechanism, a system may not have the ability to determine difference between the drop and the payment of a wager account for a bill-in reconciliation. For example, if a bill-in meter indicates $200 has been submitted at the game device where a first $100 bill was submitted for cashable credit and a second $100 was submitted for managed credit, $100 is counted in the drop, it is not clear whether the second $100 is to be applied to the drop or to a wager account payment. This in turn creates problems for bill-in reconciliation where the bill-in meter has to be reconciled with the drop meter, in part, for purposes of detecting theft. In some jurisdictions, theft is tax deductible, meaning that tax accounting can be negatively impacted if this reconciliation cannot be conducted accurately.